Tag: coronavirus

The Revolutionary Spirit promises—especially to the disaffected in extreme situations—a false hope in burning the status quo to the ground. It promises a new world order. It promises a reset. The Revolutionary Spirit inhabits the Left and the Right, but it must be resisted if we hope to participate in the desperately-needed, constructive work of political, cultural, and economic repair.

Life is ambiguous, murky, rife with situations that elude dogma’s capture. When the seas get rough, however, our tolerance of this is one of the first things hucked overboard. For example: have we felt into what it’s like to be a five-year-old walking into school in the morning?

Valetudinarianism connects arguments about the pandemic and the climate, with, on the one side, a distrust of experts and politicians, and, on the other, the belief that science (however defined) is paramount and must dictate, not simply advise, policy.

Education in the age of COVID is an opportunity for teachers and students to investigate the role of language in an intense real-world situation. Rachel Griffis considers the prevalence of analogies and the deeply troubling ways that irresponsible and unethical language is destroying civic life and communal bonds.

As a new school year begins, Jon Schaff takes stock of the effects of Covid on education. Learning is relationship, and, if the point of college, as the very term “college” implies, is to come together for the enterprise of learning, that coming together has to be more than a name or face on a screen.

Time and time again, in both mythic and recorded history, humans have celebrated the passing of a hardship by gathering together in merriment with good food and drink and song.

How do you measure the beauty, fittingness, and purposefulness of Hewitt, his family, farm, and community? I hope no one tries to innovate an inventory to do it.

Unfortunately, much of what is currently driving the discussion is not reason nor compassion but anger.

Perhaps, just perhaps, COVID has restored some of the beauty and desirability of the front porch.

This recording also serves as the inaugural episode of the Brass Spittoon, a new podcast from the Front Porch Republic. We’ll chew on issues timeless and timely, with a focus on place, limits, and liberty.